Hollow Man
"Daddy?" whispers a young boy tugging on his father's robe. The man is pouring over a pile of yellow parchment covered in small spidery writing. His luscious blonde hair is limply hanging in his face like any life had left it.
"What?" he says offhandedly grabbing for another parchment. Usually sparkling eyes are now a flat blue colour, like ice.
"Do you need any help?" the young boy asks genuinely standing on his tiptoes to check out all the parchments.
"No Draco. All I have to do is finish reading these reports to make sure they are appropriate to be seen by the public. Now scoot off and see if your mother needs any help."
"She went shopping," Draco says while discreetly inching a pile of parchments closer to himself.
"Then go play with all those toys I bought you for your birthday." Lucius doesn't even look at his son; all he does is scribble things in the margins of the reports with a large quill.
"I don't want to play with my toys. I want to help you daddy," Draco grabs a parchment from the middle of the pile and tugs on it. The crystal paperweight holding down the reports clatters to the wood floor making a dent in it. All the parchments are blown across the room by a breeze coming in from the open window behind Lucius.
Lucius freezes and slowly looks up at Draco. His son just stands there like a deer got in the headlights with one of the reports in his hands.
"I told you I didn't need any help," Lucius says coldly and calmly, which is even worse then when he yells. Draco cringes and puts the report back on Lucius' desk.
"Now look at this mess you made," he points at the parchments that are still floating around like the wind's marionettes.
"I'm sorry," Draco says, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'll clean it up." He gets down on his hands and knees and begins to chase the parchments, pilling them up between his small five-year-old fingers.
"Don't," Lucius says in a haggard voice. "Just leave it."
"Are you feeling okay?" Draco looks up worriedly from the paper he is chasing.
"I'm tired and you aren't helping. Just get out of my sight," Lucius snatches the pile of reports from Draco's hands and shoves him out the door.
The oak door loudly slams in his face. Draco stands there looking at the door as tears roll down his chubby cheeks.
He remembered what his mom had told him before she left. "Daddy is feeling well today so don't bother him."
"If daddy isn't feeling well," Draco thought, "then I'll make him a card."
He wiped away the tears and marched off to his nursery and pulled out his crayons.
Lying down on his stomach he opened the crayon box in front of him and inspects the colours. Finally he chooses a dark red to make a heart with.
His tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth he draws a sloppy but recognisable outline of a heart. Then he fills it in by scribbling quickly.
Satisfied with that he goes on to draw a stick figure of himself with strings of blonde hair and little blue plastic jewels for the eyes. Smiling he takes out an emerald green crayon, his father's favourite colour, and writes dad on the top of the paper.
Happy with himself Draco clutches the card to his chest and marches down the long hallway towards his father's office. The deep red carpet running down the centre of the hall always reminded Draco of a river filled with blood so every time he had to walk down the hall he would press his back against the wall and slowly make his way down the hall.
Only this time he didn't. In his excitement he completely forgot about it and ran happily still clutching the picture to his chest.
He slowed down as he neared his dad's office. Quietly he tip toed to the door and silently pushed open the door.
There was his father sitting at his ebony desk writing furiously. All the papers had been picked up and were neatly sitting back on Lucius' desk.
"Daddy," Draco said, his small voice full of excited anticipation.
Lucius didn't even look up. "Will you please go away. You've already caused enough damage today."
Draco looked guiltily down at his feet and was about to slip away when he remembered that daddy wasn't feeling well.
"But daddy I drew you a picture," he yelled holding the drawing above his head.
"I said leave Draco. What part of that does your brain have trouble comprehending?" Lucius still didn't look up. Instead he placed a finished report on one pile and pulled out another from a different pile.
Draco's looked questioningly at his father. "What does comprehending mean?" he innocently said.
Lucius slammed his ivory hands down onto his desk. "It means your are an annoying little pest that disobeys his father." This time he looked straight into Draco's young eyes. His dead eyes were glittering so menacingly that it almost made Draco cry.
"Your not feeling well daddy," he sweetly said holding back the tears. "That's why I made you a card." Quickly he ran over to Lucius' desk and put the drawing right over the parchment Lucius had been writing on.
Lucius picked up the card and examined it for a second. "What is this? It looks like a bunch of scribbles to me." Without even a second thought he dropped it into a metal trashcan.
Draco cried. "But daddy that was for you. It was supposed to make you feel better." Tears poured down his face. He reached into the trash to pull it out but Lucius grabbed his hand.
"It's unsanitary to take things from the trash Draco."
"But daddy," Draco sobbed, "That was your card. I made it for you. Don't you want it."
Lucius sighed and looked at this son. "Grow-up Draco. That was just a bunch of scribbles. I would expect better from a son of mine. No it's an embarrassment to both of us and the trash is where it belongs."
"But daddy..." the tears were now freely flowing.
"Pull yourself together. No self-respecting gentleman ever cries," Lucius shook his finger at Draco.
"Take it," Draco quickly grabbed the picture out of the trash and thrust it onto Lucius' desk. He accidentally hit a bottle of ink that spilled over and seeped into all of Lucius' reports.
"Draco!" Lucius yelled quickly standing up. His leather chair slammed onto the floor behind him. "Now look what you've done! Get out of my sight you bloody little brat!"
As Lucius screamed Draco stood there petrified. Silent cold tears cascaded down his shaking face.
"I said GET OUT!" Lucius stomped across the room. Draco squeaked but his legs wouldn't move.
"DON'T DISOBEY ME BOY!" Lucius slammed his hand across Draco's face. His son fell to the floor and crumpled into a pile of tears and fright.
Straightening his robe Lucius went back to his desk righted his chair and calmly sat down. With a flick of his wand he cleaned up the ink and then continued to write away on his reports.
On the floor Draco tried to stand up but his legs kept falling out from under him. His whole body was shaking in terror and his face burned with the red-hot fury of his father's hand.
Abandoning the thought of standing up Draco began to drag himself across the floor while tears dropped into the black carpet. The going was slow and his legs rubbed raw on the rug. As he pulled himself over the threshold of the office the tall oak doors slammed shut shoving him out into the hall.
Sobbing uncontrollably Draco curled up into a ball and cried himself to sleep right there in the hall.